


Vengeance

by its_just_a_turt



Category: Nightmare Time - Team StarKid, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, How Do I Tag, Will Add More Tags as I Post More Chapters, especially for forever and always, guns and knifes especially, spoilers for nightmare time ep 2, the paulkins comes in later in the story, tw weapons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27347704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/its_just_a_turt/pseuds/its_just_a_turt
Summary: Spoilers for Nightmare Time Episode 2!Paul Matthews was perfectly content with simply living out his life in Hatchetfield as everything would flow smoothly. But of course, life never flows smoothly.An AU where Paul survives 23's attempt on his life.
Relationships: Paul Matthews/Emma Perkins
Comments: 10
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This AU was created by @theatre-apocalypse on tumblr, do check out their art: https://theatre-apocalypse.tumblr.com/post/632348772404428800/au-where-23-leaves-paul-for-dead-but-he-survives
> 
> Enjoy.
> 
> Edit(11/11/20): Minor changes to tags.

Paul Matthews had everything he could have ever wanted. Not that he wanted a lot, or anything, for that matter, but he had a beautiful girlfriend, whom he hoped to someday tie the knot with, a stable job with good insurance, and several good friends, which was all that he needed, and he only wanted what he needed. Paul was content with simply living out his life in Hatchetfield with Emma while working his job at CCRP, which was, as far as he was concerned, a regular office job mostly involving typing numbers into Excel, weekly reports and Monday meetings. He was content with living and growing old in this place as everything would flow smoothly. 

But of course, life never flows smoothly.

It was meant to be a regular Thursday as Paul walked home from work. As he walked, he conjured up the image of Emma’s smile in his mind, soothing the anxiety that would usually rear its ugly head whenever he was in a quiet place, like the alleyway he was in.

Just as he was about to make a turn to the right to a slightly more crowded walkway, there was a rustling sound on his left, startling him. “Hey, what was that?” he said instinctively to no one in particular as he turned to face whatever made the noise, but all he saw was an empty, narrow alley, filled with mostly garbage bins and trash dumps. Slightly confused but thinking nothing of it, he turned back to the walkway.

He felt someone grab his arm as he was forcefully pulled to the left into the trash dump alley.

“Boo.”

A searing pain radiated through his body as he felt something sharp pierce his back. Paul’s breath caught in his throat as he shakily turned his head to face his assailant.

His eyes widened in shock.

Clutching onto the knife that was currently embedded in Paul’s back was _himself_.

The same face that he saw in the mirror every day stared him down, those familiar blue eyes boring into his soul. His assailant’s mouth opened, and he heard _his own voice_ speak to him. “Sorry about this, but I don’t really want to be slaving my life away on the moon, so I’m gonna have to do this. It was nice meeting you, _Paul._ ”

Pain shot through Paul’s back as the knife was pulled out and he collapsed to the ground, only able to watch as the doppelganger grabbed the briefcase Paul had been carrying and stood above him. “Any last words?” He heard his voice speak words that were not his own yet again.

He’s going to die. _Oh, gods, he’s going to die._ Despair started to sink in as Paul’s energy slowly drained away. Dark spots started to form in his vision. As the last slivers of life leaked away, Paul opened his mouth with whatever remnants of strength he had, and with what he thought was going to be his last breath, he whispered three words.

“Emma, I’m sorry….”

Everything went black.

* * *

He felt the pain before he even knew he was awake.

Searing, stabbing, pounding pain, in his back, in his throat, in his chest, in his head. Everything hurt. He groaned weakly, having no energy to even open his eyes.

“He’s awake!” A voice called out distantly, and everything started to move. His surroundings moved, people around him seemed to move, everything moved except him. He lay silently as he felt needles being stuck and removed from his skin, hearing the whirring of machines come and go. Eventually, the pain started to be replaced by a tired numbness. Paul guessed it was due to whatever painkillers he was given.

Eventually, he decided to try opening his eyes; he wanted to at least see where he appeared to be. The first thing he saw was the colour white; it covered nearly everything in his room, from the walls to the floor and the furniture. Focusing, he could see that the furniture included the bed he was lying on as well as a small table to his right, which had a small bottle of blue flowers placed on the top in an attempt to decorate the room. Beside the table were three stools that were neatly pushed in. He looked to the left to see a door and a set of cupboards. It didn’t seem like a room in a hospital; it felt more like a dormitory.

The door opened and Paul’s head turned to see a familiar bespectacled man with long brown hair standing there. “Mr. Davidson?” he asked, somewhat puzzled as to why his boss would be here out of all people.

Mr. Davidson smiled. “Hey, Paul.”

Paul watched as Mr. Davidson walked over to the right of Paul and took out a stool to sit down. “So,” his boss said, “you must be rather overwhelmed by whatever happened to you, right?” Paul nodded. Getting stabbed by someone that matched his appearance and voice was very bizarre, to say the least. He was almost certain he had actually been stabbed by some random hobo while he was exhausted after finishing work and had imagined things, but the pain of being stabbed and the image of his attacker’s – _his own_ –face was imprinted onto his mind.

“Paul, allow me to help you understand.” Davidson continued. “Coven Communications Research and Power handles more than just numbers and reports; you’re just in the technical department, which handles those boring parts. We specialise in technology and seek to advance it to benefit humanity. We’ve got several projects in progress, most involving things like cyborgs, robots and androids, but we’ve already completed one particular project: cloning.”

Paul furrowed his brows. This explanation was only making him more confused. “Wait, was I cloned? Did a clone attack me?” he asked his boss.

“Paul, please just let me finish explaining.” Davidson sighed. “We had managed to find a way to effectively make exact copies of a person’s DNA, and all we needed was a subject, a person whose DNA we could use. We decided to use yours, since you appeared to be an average person in every aspect, no offense.”

“None taken,” Paul responded reflexively. He knew he wasn’t anything special, but the fact that he was chosen to be the unwilling subject of a science experiment somewhat unsettled him.

Mr. Davidson continued on. “The cloning was a success, and thirty clones were created with the exact same physical attributes, personalities, and memories as Paul Matthews. We were originally going to send them to a moon base to work for us, but something went wrong. The security system malfunctioned. The clones knew about our plans for them and escaped. Only gods know where they are now.”

“And they’re targeting me? The original Paul?” The pieces were starting to fit together, but Paul needed to know more.

“Not just you. They’re going for each other. Today we found the body of one of your clones, stabbed in an abandoned alleyway. They’re at _war_ , Paul. They’re all over Hatchetfield, killing each other until only one winner remains.”

“One winner…” Paul repeated, trying to process all of this. “And the winner gets to take my identity,” his heart dropped as he concluded. What the hell had he gotten himself into? His entire _identity_ as Paul Matthews was at stake. All he had wanted was to have a normal life, and now he was caught up in a _battle_ for that normal life.

“Paul, I understand you must be very affected by all of this, but there is a way out of your situation,” Mr. Davidson said, grabbing Paul’s attention. Paul looked up at his boss, who reached into his pocket, smiling cryptically.

Paul drew in a sharp breath as a handgun was taken out. Mr. Davidson quickly placed it on the table, leaving it menacingly lying there like it could come to life at any moment. His boss turned to his employee. “Paul Matthews, your previous role in CCRP was in the technical department. Your role in this company will temporarily change as of now. Your current job is to terminate all existing clones of Paul Matthews with as little traces as possible.” Mr. Davidson picked up the handgun and held it by the barrel towards Paul.

_Terminate_ them? He was going to have to _kill_ them. He wasn’t particularly strong, mentally or physically, and definitely didn’t want to kill people. He was just a normal guy who wanted to live a normal life.

_A normal life._ That was what he wanted, more than anything. His normal routine, his normal identity, _his normal life._ Clones weren’t the same as people, anyway. If it meant being able to come home to Emma again, so be it. If it meant that he could have his life back, so be it.

Paul firmly gripped the handle of the gun.

“Okay.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paul gets ready for tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Kirb for beta reading Ch 1, and Lynn for beta reading this chapter!

Stab wounds absolutely did not heal in a week. Even though, by some miracle, the knife hadn’t damaged any of Paul’s major organs, asking him to be up and about in a week was outrageous, especially if he was going to be killing people. The promise that CCRP would be using their best medical technology on him did not help. It had been 6 days since Mr. Davidson assigned Paul his new job, and Paul could barely function without painkillers. Almost every movement was painful, and yet CCRP thought that Paul would be ready to go kill 30 identical copies of himself in a week? They would have better chances with hiring a piece of paper.

Paul lay there in the same white bed, in the same white room that he had been in for the past 6 days, silently getting anxious about the next day. How would CCRP respond to this? He was very obviously not ready to even be walking around, much less firing a gun. How was he going to be ready for tomorrow? What if he wasn’t ready, and his clones somehow found and killed him? Even if he was somehow ready for tomorrow, what if he got killed by a clone? What if they went for Bill? What if they went for Emma? What if…

_ What if tomorrow came? _

The door swung open, jerking him out of his thoughts. At the door stood a person in a medical uniform, most likely here to check on him, Paul guessed. He lay there, expecting the usual tests to be performed on him, but instead of the regular syringes and machines, the doctor simply took out a peculiar black device. Paul stared quizzically at it as the doctor lifted up Paul’s shirt and removed his bandages to expose his stab wound. They held the device up to his stomach. “Mr. Matthews, I apologize for this, but this will hurt,” they spoke, before pressing a button on the device.

Immediately, immense pain tore through Paul’s body, like his wound was being torn open and a knife stabbed through it another ten times. He screamed, and screamed, and  _ oh god it hurts it hurts- _

And the pain left as quickly as it came.

Paul could only blink in shock.  _ What the fuck? _ He looked down at his wound and drew in a sharp breath.

It was gone.

He looked up to the doctor, mouth agape. The wound had completely  _ vanished. _ No scar, no blood, he didn’t even feel any pain coming from it. “What the hell was that?”

“Details are classified, but it is a new piece of technology CCRP has developed,” the doctor answered, to Paul’s disappointment. CCRP was seriously way too cryptic.

“Since you’re healed now, Mr. Davidson wants to see you. Follow me.” The doctor pocketed the healing device and walked out the door.

Paul took a deep breath and sat up, letting his feet touch the floor for the first time in days. He shakily stood up and smiled at the absence of the aching that his wound would make with every movement. Back in working order, he supposed. Carefully, he moved his legs to slowly pace around the room, before picking up the pace and walking out to follow the doctor.

* * *

Mr. Davidson’s office was usually just that – an office. Under usual circumstances, Paul would usually only need to step into his office once a week, to deliver his weekly report. Even if Mr. Davidson called him into his office, Paul usually wouldn’t feel intimidated or anxious – it was usually because he forgot to turn in his weekly report, or that Mr. Davidson wanted him to present at the next meeting. However, as Paul opened the door to his boss’s office, he knew that this visit wasn’t just for any of those reasons, and he could feel a thin layer of sweat start to form and his heart rate quicken.

He stepped in, and Mr. Davidson was sitting there, his face obscured by the newspaper he was reading. Paul announced his presence as he usually did, with a simple “Hey, Mr. Davidson,” before taking a seat at the chair facing his boss.

Mr. Davidson looked up from his newspaper but otherwise said nothing. Paul nervously continued, “Uh, I know, I’m going off for my, uh, new job tomorrow, and I admit I am somewhat anxious for it, but, uh….” He trailed off for a moment.  _ Somewhat _ anxious? Being thrown into an island battleground with 30 exact clones of him that all wanted him dead was  _ frightening _ . He could  _ die _ in there, and probably would unless he was given some advantage.

An advantage like a piece of CCRP technology, perhaps.

Paul continued his sentence, “…if you’re able to spare, perhaps, a  _ tool _ that can help me in some way, I’m sure that, uh, the job will be easier and faster.” He was dripping with sweat at this point, his heart racing with anxiety, which he attempted to hide with a smile.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Paul was starting to wonder if Mr. Davidson had even heard him and was about to open his mouth to say more, when Mr. Davidson finally spoke.

“…A tool, hmm?”

“Y-yes, Mr. Davidson.”

His boss folded his newspaper and put it to the side. He smiled in that cryptic manner that all CCRP employees that Paul had met in the past 6 days seemed to do, and Paul was frankly starting to get tired of it. “Paul, you’re going to be hunting down  _ identical copies _ of yourself. We’re not so stupid to think that you’re going to survive out there without any help. We’ll be providing you with a few pieces of equipment that I’m sure will prove useful in your mission.”

“Okay, can I see them?”

Mr. Davidson only smiled. “You’ll see tomorrow.”

_ Tomorrow. _

Paul had spent the majority of his 6 days thinking about tomorrow. The 7 th day, the day he would be sent out into the battleground that was Hatchetfield in a fight to the death for his life, the day that was  _ tomorrow _ .

After a brief discussion about plans and some moral support from Mr. Davidson, Paul left the office and returned to his quarters, patiently awaiting tomorrow.

Tomorrow, he would get his life back.

Tomorrow, he would eliminate the thieves that stole it.

Tomorrow, he would have vengeance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is kinda short, and I know that this took a week, and I'm sorry for updating like this, but I also want to make my updates scheduled, so I set a deadline for each chapter to be Monday, and I know I could've worked harder and updated sooner, but I got distracted a lot and I'm sorry.  
> Chapter 3 will be when things start to get real, but this week I'm rather busy, so I apologize for any delay in updating.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Do leave a comment if you've got anything to say, whether it's praise, criticism, or random screaming (don't spam).


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Paul begins his move, another person makes his as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That archive warning in the tags will apply here. TW for gore, violence and weapons.

He lay in his usual spot among disorganised rows of trash, clutching a kitchen knife he had spent hours sharpening. The mountains of black trash bags hid his presence from anyone entering the alleyway while giving him a good view of them, making it a perfect ambush spot. His pale blue gaze scanned and searched the area for any movement, narrowing in disappointment when none could be detected.

As the stench of garbage seemed to become stronger, he briefly considered relocating to a cleaner hiding spot before remembering that there were none. He decided to absentmindedly examine the knife instead. As his eyes glazed over the blade, his focus wandered to his right arm, where a simple, yet permanent, number was tattooed.

_23._

That was his label. Not a name, not even a nickname, but a _number_. To his creators, he was just that – a number, a servant, a _slave._ His ‘memories’ were really just implanted information that taunted him with the knowledge of the better, hope-filled life of Paul Matthews, a life which he was seeking to take back.

He was, in almost every regard, Paul Matthews. He looked like him, thought like him, felt like him, and was even _genetically identical_ to him, yet he and the others were somehow deemed less than human and forced to resign themselves to lifelong labour while Paul Matthews lived freely and blissfully.

A rustle came from the entrance to the alleyway, alerting him to a presence nearby. Tightening the grip on his knife, he peeked out to take a look at the intruder’s face.

He smiled at the sight of his own. Jackpot.

Mentally, he briefly went over his attack plan: grab, stab, and slit, in that order. Then, in prime position to attack, he halted the other clone’s advance with a strong grab on his ankle, no doubt surprising his opponent. Using the few precious seconds that the surprise bought him, he brought the knife down into his leg. As his opponent howled in pain, he ensured that that would be the last time his opponent would make any more sound by swiftly removing the knife and slitting the throat.

And it was all over in 30 seconds.

At first, he had preferred to simply stab the target and have them bleed out, but he later found out that slitting the throat was a quicker and more effective solution. Less blood to clean up, a quicker death, and less chance of survival.

Speaking of cleaning up, he needed to do something with that body.

He carried it over to the back of his castle of rubbish, where it was more hidden. After looting a knife and a pack of Red Vines from the body, and switching his filthy and bloody grey T-shirt for the other’s white shirt, he grabbed his knife and took a deep breath.

He hated doing this, but the body wouldn’t fit into the rubbish bags otherwise, and he’d have to deal with a rotting dead body on his turf. He started with the right arm, which had a ‘06’ tattooed on, and sawed through the right shoulder.

After what seemed like an eternity of flesh, bone and gore, it finally came off, and he threw it into a rubbish bag. Swallowing down his nausea, he got to work on the next limb.

The deed was done, and he was left with only several rubbish bags that he prayed would never be opened again and an overwhelming yet familiar nausea. It wasn’t the first time he had done things like this and it wouldn’t be the last. Finally finished, he went back to the front of his spot, laying down in the same position as before, closing his eyes to rest.

Soon, the war would end, and he would either be among the peaceful dead, or he would finally have a name.

He would finally be Paul Matthews.

* * *

A handgun, a dagger, a disintegrator, food, water and a bit of money.

Paul checked his bag one more time before finally heading out, stashing the handgun in his coat pocket while keeping the others in a satchel. He adjusted his glasses, which were provided to him along with a suit that was vastly different from his usual style, with a vest instead of a brown blazer and a striped scarf covering his mouth and nose. The red and green stripes of the scarf matched his tie and made Paul feel like he was dressing too fancy; he usually preferred a plain and modest outfit. Still, the outlandish style and the partial face covering made it less likely that he would be recognised. There was already one CCRP employee who mistook him for some shady attorney Paul wanted nothing to do with, so it worked rather well.

As for the weapons, he had wanted only the gun and the dagger, but when the scientists offered that prototype disintegrator, he took the chance.

He was fully prepared and ready to go, but where could he start?

Perhaps he could try visiting places he tended to frequent. His office was already taken care of, since CCRP was very clearly on his side in the first place. His house was another place with which he was familiar with, but with it being so common and familiar to him, there would probably be many other clones there as well, and Paul didn’t want to take the risk. No, his house wouldn’t be a good place to start, but somewhere else, somewhere that he went all the time but never stayed for too long, somewhere that he always wished he could stay for longer, somewhere like… Beanies?

Wait, wait, no. Absolutely not. The last thing he wanted to do was to involve Emma in this mess. If her life were to be endangered because of him and his war, he would never forgive himself.

He still needed to start _somewhere_ , though. Hatchetfield wasn’t a terribly big place, so perhaps if he just kept moving, he might run into a clone. After all, he didn’t need to be actively hunting down targets, he just needed to survive.

He started walking without any particular destination in mind. Having lived in this town his whole life, he knew Hatchetfield’s streets like the back of his hand. He knew where he was going, but he didn’t care; he just walked, though he did try to stay on the main paths this time. Instead of being lost in his thoughts as he moved, which was his usual routine when traveling, he chose to stay alert as he walked and kept an eye out for any potential danger.

Unfortunately, despite his attempts to stay around the busy centre of the town, he found nothing of note. He briefly considered going back to CCRP, but he would have made absolutely no progress and only wasted time if he did so. Instead, he decided to take that risk, heading further into the outskirts of the town.

Hatchetfield was a small town on a fairly small island, but the island was divided into the busier, central part of the town, where Paul lived and worked, and the outskirts, where it was quieter and less populated. Paul had never had any business with the outskirts and never wanted any. There wasn’t really anything good there, except for that particularly nice beach around the west of the island that he would occasionally visit. Other than that, the outskirts consisted of small houses that mostly belonged to elderly folks, some weird theme park, and the Witchwood forest.

And apparently, he seemed to be in that forest right now.

As the scattered houses started to shrink in the distance and the thicket of trees around him grew denser, he stopped to take a breath and look around. The forest surrounded him from all directions but one, which was the direction he had entered from. Paul looked towards the waves of tall, spindly trees and shuddered; he did _not_ want to go in there. Not because he was scared, no. He’d heard of stories of monsters and beasts lurking in the forest and he _did not_ believe in them one bit. He just didn’t want to get lost in there. The forest was a great place to get ambushed, after all, and again, he did not want to go deeper into the forest _because he didn’t want to get lost,_ and definitely not because he was scared. He wasn’t scared. At all. Nope.

A thump came from his right, causing him to jump. A startled noise escaped his mouth, which was almost immediately answered with another startled noise. He reached for his gun and yanked it out of his coat pocket when he saw a figure start to approach and-

“Whoa, whoa, dude, don’t shoot me!”

In front of him stood the shivering figure of himself, who was clearly very spooked. His own face stared back at him, pale with fright.

His clone spoke again, “Okay, okay, we can talk this out, no one needs to get hurt, man.” Paul said nothing.

He could do it now. Do his job, shoot the clone and be done with it. But as he stared at the clone, something in him kept his finger from pulling the trigger. He was going to _kill a man_. Yes, that man was artificially produced in a lab from his own DNA, but he hesitated anyway. He lacked the strength to kill, and he hated it.

He put down his gun. “There we go,” the clone said, sighing in relief. As Paul silently put his gun back into his coat pocket, the clone spoke again, “Hey, I think I’ve seen you around before. You’re that, uh, lawyer guy, right?”

Right. The disguise. Of all the people he could have looked like, why did it have to be Gary Goldstein? He hadn’t even met the guy in person. The only knowledge he had of the man came from the advertisements on billboards and the TV, and the rumours that always circled around. “Y-yeah,” he said in his best impression of Goldstein’s nasally voice. “Gary Goldstein, attorney at law.”

The clone nodded and offered his hand to shake. “Right. Paul Matthews.”

No. No, that was wrong. _He_ was Paul Matthews. Paul – the _real_ one, not that impersonation – grit his teeth. This _imposter_ was stealing his name, his face, and his _life_. The clone put on a smile— _Paul’s_ smile, the ingenuine one that he would put on when he had to greet a client, but his, nonetheless. He knew his life was nothing impressive. It was ordinary in every way, but he hadn’t worked hard building it up just for some manufactured impostors to steal it all away.

He was Paul Matthews, and he was going to do his job.

Paul took the clone’s hand and shook it, plastering on a smile. Right as their hands separated, Paul’s faux politeness changed to faux surprise as he pointed up and exclaimed, “Whoa, what the hell is that?”

It was a classic trick, but the clone still fell for it, turning around and giving Paul a chance. As the clone stared at the sky confused, the gun was already in Paul’s hands. He wasn’t going to let this one go.

The clone had turned around to the sound of the gun being cocked, but it didn’t matter; Paul’s finger was already on the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh this was a great one to write! 
> 
> this one isn't beta read and barely proofread, I was kinda in a hurry to publish this, so do inform me if there are errors.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paul stumbles into an encounter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bet you'd thought you'd seen the last of me
> 
> I don't think you want to read me rambling about why this took 6 fucking weeks so I'll leave a short version in the end notes and let you enjoy the chapter.

Laying on a makeshift pillow he made out of a trash bag and the softest, cleanest stuff he could find in this mountain of trash, he looked up at the stars. He was never interested in astrology, or at least, _Paul_ was never interested in it, preferring to keep his sights down to earth. He supposed that even if he was, trying to identify pointless patterns in the night sky wouldn’t solve anything. The glittering, shining cosmos was still beautiful however, even if the continuous stench of the dumpster somewhat ruined it.

He wished it could stay like this forever. Just him, a pillow, and the night. Maybe Emma would like this too. Sure, his memories of her were falsely implanted into him, but she wasn’t false. She was as real and true as she could get, and he loved her. He loved how she’d tease and scold him for being such a sucker if she could hear his thoughts right now. He loved how every night, on their bed, she’d steal his part of the blanket to he’d have to hold on to her for warmth. He loved how he could always come back to her.

Tears sprang to his eyes as he realised that he couldn’t come back to her. He had never seen her face with his own eyes, and if he died in this hellhole, he never would.

Which is why he needed to survive. Take back his name and survive to come home to Emma.

A rustle from the alley pulled him out of his thoughts and he peeked out of his spot to see a bespectacled man trudging through the garbage with a hunched back and a tired expression. At first, he was about to let his guard down and return to pointlessly staring at the sky, but there was an air of familiarity about the man. His steps laboriously dragged across the filthy ground but maintained some form of caution. The eyes behind the man’s spectacles, while burdened with exhaustion, were a very familiar pale blue. He poked his head out a little more to get a better look at his face, and his suspicions were confirmed.

_I’m coming for you, Emma._

* * *

Why did he go into that stinking alley?

Paul was literally _stabbed_ in a _similar_ narrow pathway covered with trash, and somehow, he thought it was a good idea to just walk into another one?

In his defence, he was tired. He didn’t exactly have _experience_ with this kind of job, and that entire ordeal in the forest had drained him of energy. Still, this was a terrible time to relax and lose focus, especially when Paul noticed _his own face poking out of the dumpster._

The clone was nestled in the piles upon piles of garbage, a knife in his right hand ready to strike, his pale blue eyes wide at the shock that his ambush had been found out. For a few vulnerable moments, Paul made the mistake of freezing at the sudden surprise, which gave the clone the chance to snatch at his arm, tightly gripping his right wrist. Paul yelped as the knife plunged forward and frantically dodged to the side, barely missing him. Momentarily, the grip on Paul’s wrist weakened, allowing him to yank it free and run, but his attacker wasn’t giving up; in a desperate attempt at reaching his target, the clone grasped Paul’s sleeve.

A curse slipped out of Paul’s lips as he was violently pulled back and he spotted the dangerous glint of the knife in the corner of his eye, causing him to instinctively scramble away from it. He allowed himself a tiny breath of relief as the knife struck the ground beside him, but his sleeve was still in his attacker’s grab. With as much force as he could muster, Paul pulled his arm back and with a sharp ripping sound, the sleeve was torn off.

Paul took the chance and fled with his life and a memory of terror that he’d never forget.

* * *

The grounds of the dumpster shook as he slammed his fist down in anger.

How could he have been so _stupid?_

The target’s wrist had been _clean_. His fucking wrist hadn’t even a _trace_ of a number. He should have been rotting in the dumps after bleeding out from being stabbed in the back, yet here he had been, alive and well, as if a knife hadn’t gone through his back a week ago.

Perhaps that would explain why he never could find the body to dispose of it. At first, he had half-heartedly searched around the dumpster to erase its traces but after a good round of dumpster diving it had seemed those traces had already been erased, so he had given up.

Still, that didn’t explain how his target appeared absolutely _untouched_ from his attack a week ago, even though he very clearly remembered how he bled out on the ground.

Did he imagine it? Perhaps in all that time spent hiding out in the dark, dirty underbelly of Hatchetfield, he started to go insane and hallucinate things. Perhaps he falsely remembered which Paul he had stabbed; most of his memories were false anyway, so that possibility wasn’t too far off. Perhaps, through some unimaginable techniques, he _didn’t_ imagine that whole ordeal last week and the target somehow managed to heal from his wounds.

No matter how many assumptions or theories he tried to make however, there was always one conclusive fact.

Paul Matthews was alive.

 _The Original_ was alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, yeah.  
> this huge hiatus started off with a one-week break because I got stuck on this chapter and couldn't figure out how to progress, and when I couldn't get past this hurdle, the "break" became 2 weeks, then 3, then 4.  
> eventually I managed to rework this and beat it into existence. I know that this fic is by no means impressive. this chapter is only 900 words. but hey, at least you could say that I tried instead of completely giving up on this and deleting it.  
> happy new year.


End file.
